


1979

by prairie_dust



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abuse, Boys Kissing, First Kiss, Homophobia, M/M, Prostitute Dean, Violence by parent toward grown child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-23
Updated: 2015-03-23
Packaged: 2018-03-19 07:11:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3600945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairie_dust/pseuds/prairie_dust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean and Sam are at loose ends when John leaves them for a solo hunt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1979

Dean spotted an aluminum can beneath the edge of the bin, gleaming a tantalizing sapphire blue even in the brassy glow of the sodium-vapor streetlight. Sam spotted it a second later-- Dean grabbed his brother’s shoulder before Sam could reach for it.

“Dude, rats.”

“Right,” Sam breathed, stepping back.

Dean knelt down and shone his penlight under the bin. Broken bits of green and amber glass blazed against the shadows like gems in a mine, but he saw no black-and-white glint of rodent eyes. He reached his hand into the shadows, lightning quick, and swiped at the can. It skittered across the pavement and Sam pounced on it. The roar of the cicadas in the woods behind their motel was so loud that Dean could barely hear the crunch of Sam’s muddy tennis shoes in the gravel. It was as though they were living under water.

As Dean stood up, he saw the dusty blue Corolla roll slowly through the parking lot. It had been behind them, more or less, for three blocks. It had followed them yesterday, too, but the driver had sped away when Dean approached him. He put an arm around Sammy and steered him back toward the motel.

Sam protested and tried to get back over to the trash bins. “Hey, we don’t even have enough for--”

“Dude, _rats_ ,” said Dean again. “We’ll get more stuff in the morning, anyway. Those guys across from the pool will have bags and bags of beer cans just sitting out for us, like Christmas stockings, okay?”

“No... I bet that old lady will get to them first.” Sam sounded discouraged. He was still hungry. He was always hungry, anyway, but lately he was starting to look drawn out and skinny, like pulled taffy.

Dean eyed the parking lot again. Toyota guy was turning around by the restaurant next to the motel. Dean looked over his shoulder and held up one finger behind his back, hoping the guy would see it. Wait one minute.

The “w” on the restaurant’s sign was busted out, and Sam had been making the same stupid joke about it all week. “Nah,” said Dean, “I’ll get up early and snag ‘em, okay? Then we’ll eat at the Waffle House.”

Sam laughed. “You mean, we’ll eat at the Awful House?” he said, snickering.

“Yeah, the Awful House for when you’re awful hungry,” Dean retorted, looking over his shoulder at the car.

It was pulling out into the street.

Damn.

The sound of the cicadas swelled and crashed into the back of Dean’s head.

Dean keyed into the room. “But hey Sam, I’m gonna go get us some chips and a soda. Oh, and I spotted some whole glass bottles under there. I’m gonna go ahead and get them tonight, before Can Lady does. Okay?”

“Okay,” Sam answered, putting their scavenged recycling by the door and scooping up the remote. “Watch out for rats,” he said, studying the grubby channel list.

“Yeah. Don’t open the door for anybody but me or Dad,” Dean said reflexively.

Sam started changing channels on the old television. Each change was cued by a loud, percussive crunch of static.

Dean waited just outside for Sam to secure the chain. When he didn’t, Dean pounded on the door. “Hey, chain, too!”

One of the weirdos in the room next next to theirs twitched open the curtains and peered out at him. It was the skinny, strung out chick with the face like a wet cat. Probably the one they heard sobbing and whining all the time. He gave her the finger. _Not your dealer_ , he mouthed to her, pointing to his chest and shaking his head exaggeratedly.

Sam slid the chain into place.

The curtain fell.

Dean stepped out into the motel parking lot, searching for Corolla guy.

He faintly heard the tight grist of tires on asphalt, and away beyond the pool he saw the fading blue car creeping across the motel lot.

His heart was pounding.

The Toyota ground to a stop by the Dumpster and the passenger side window rolled down with a peevish whine. Dean sauntered across the parking lot. The cicadas had been singing at a low squall all afternoon, but they were growing louder and denser now that the sun was going down, so he leaned in and rested his elbows on the door frame.

“How old are you?” the man in the car asked bluntly.

Dean turned on a smile. “Just a day older than I was yesterday.”

“Cut that shit out. How old are you?”

 _'Don’t lie about your age when you’re underage,'_ Tawnya from Kentucky had told him, _'and once you’re eighteen lie until your pants catch fire. I’ve been sixteen for three years.'_

“I’m seventeen. You want to take your chances, or should I go back inside and watch cartoons?” He leaned down even more, looking coyly over his shoulder back towards the motel, pouting a little. This was much farther than they’d gotten last time.

The man just stared out past the hood of his car. Some men on the radio were talking about Ireland. What was this guy waiting for? Was he listening to the show? What the hell?

“Alright, dude, I can’t stand here all night,” Dean said, turning to leave.

He was just starting to think Corolla guy was going to let him get away, when the man called out, “Okay, goddammit! Get in!”

Dean spun around and hopped into the car. He hoped the guy didn’t chicken out today.

“Two blocks west,” Dean instructed, “there’s an overflow lot for Bingo night behind the Eagles lodge another block to the left. Go anywhere else and I’m bailing.”

“Really, kid?”

“Yeah, really. And put on some music.”

The man switched the station on the radio. Smashing Pumpkins. _‘Double cross the vacant and the bored,’_ Billy Corgan was singing in an intimate half-whisper.

Why is it always this grungy crap? Dean thought to himself. He didn’t even understand why anyone would bother to write a song about most of the junk these guys thought was important. But Toyota guy bobbed his head along nervously, and the chorus was actually kinda pretty, so Dean just sat back, watching the gaudy plastic and neon signs scroll by. The car smelled like cigarette smoke and stale coffee. He tried to gauge the zone where the man should start slowing down to turn at the corner.

He didn’t slow down. He didn’t turn.

“You passed the Eagles,” Dean said levelly, trying to swallow his heart back down.

“Yeah. Is that where your shitty cop friends are parked? Those the ‘eagles’ you’re talking about?” the man sneered.

Dean thought to himself that this had gone bad just as quickly as it had gotten started. Maybe he’d missed something about this dude. Maybe there was some other kind of desperation behind him, besides the nervousness of picking up a kid for a quickie by a run-down motel. He didn’t have anything silver on him, no way to check to see if this guy was human or not, except for a funny little pen knife he’d picked up in Pennsylvania. He knew that, no matter what was going on with this guy, pulling any kind of a blade out would be a bad idea.

“No. That’s where this thing we got going on was gonna go down.” Dean tried to keep his voice low and steady. “If you headed anywhere else, I was gone. I told you.” They drifted to a stop at the next red light, and Dean started to open the car door.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Toyota man sneered, and hit a button that locked the doors.

“Oh no! Automatic door locks! Whatever will I do?” yelped Dean in a girlish falsetto as he pushed the lock forward and threw the door open.

He ducked out of the car and ran between the two lanes, zipped behind an idling truck, and then leaped onto the sidewalk. He didn’t head straight back to the motel, but ran along the crossroad instead, stopping a block down to see what Toyota guy would do. He shifted the handgun that he kept stuck in his waistband just a bit.

 _Stupid_ , he thought to himself. _The guy knows where you’re staying, now. Damn stupid._ Picking up a trick right in front of his motel. He’d been desperate, and dumb. _You gotta be smarter about this._ He felt thick all over, and the jeering of the cicadas filled his head.

Buy Toyota man didn’t turn around. In fact, when the light finally turned green, he sped off up the street so fast that he got pulled over by a cop who was leaving a Whataburger.

That bought him plenty of time, but he still sprinted back to the motel.

 

“Run Forrest!” yelled one of the next-door weirdos from a chair in front of his room as Dean finally got back to the motel.

“Fuck off,” Dean, panted as he jogged to a halt in front of his room, but then reconsidered and said, “No, wait, sorry. You seen a light blue Corolla come by here?”

The weirdo chuckled. “No. Should I have?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “No, no. Actually,” he said, pointing back and forth between himself and weirdo number two, “we’re hoping it doesn’t come back.”

“Cool. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.” The young man held up a lean hand, two fingers crossed together. “I’m Justin. Hey, you want a beer after all that running?”

Dean was still amped up from the weirdness in the car and the dash back to the motel. He was frustrated that his hustle had gone wrong-- again-- and that he’d burned the last of his daylight. On top of that he’d had worn himself ragged running away from a rabbity middle-aged pervert who had probably had a heart attack and died when that cop pegged him for speeding.

“I’m Dean. And hell yes, I’d like a beer.”

Justin ducked inside and came back with a sweaty bottle with a computer-printed label that came off in Dean’s hand, leaving red and blue ink on his palm. “Wait. What the hell is this? ’Pink Posey’?” It was still sealed, but that didn’t mean there weren’t already some extra ingredients in the mix.

Justin had a deep, mellow chuckle. “It’s a home brew from a friend of mine. Red ale. Came out pretty good, but then he let his girlfriend name it,” he said, taking a swig.

Dean opened the bottle on the edge of the chair and tried not to chug it. It was a little bit bitter, but somehow that seemed to quench his thirst faster than a cola would have.

“It’s not bad,” Dean said appraisingly.

“It’s _not bad_ ,” Justin teased. “How old are you, kid? Sixteen?”

“No, sugar plum. Eighteen this past January.” He thought maybe he said that a little too loudly. He thought... maybe he’d just called this guy ‘sugar plum.’

“Eighteen. God damn.” They sat together quietly for a few moments, sipping the Pink Posey and listening to the tidal wave of the cicada song until their shirring drowned out the buzz of the street lamps.

Dean watched Justin out of the corner of his eye. He wore a clean white oxford with a green tie draped around the collar and a Bleuward’s Groceries name tag that said ‘Jason.’

“So how come your tag says Jason if your name is really Justin?”

Justin chuckled. “’Cause I lost my real one. I’d have to pay fifteen dollars for a new badge, so I pulled this one out of lost and found. Close enough, right?”

“What did your boss say?”

“Nothin’. He just started calling me Jason.” He winked at Dean and laughed again.

His hair was pale blue at the tips, turning greenish-yellow and then orange; his real hair color seemed to be a very dark brown or even black. He had a stud through his bottom lip. Dean wondered if the stud clicked against his teeth when he talked.

“Did that hurt?” he blurted out.

Justin laughed deeply. “What, when I fell from heaven?”

“No,” Dean said quickly. “That thing through your lip.” His ears suddenly felt white-hot.

“Ah. You know. Pain is fleeting. Holes are forever.” Then he burst into laughter. “Wait, no they’re not. What the hell did I just say?”

Dean laughed with him. “How high are you?”

“I see trees of green and red roses too, is how high,” he warbled. Then he put his head back with his eyes half-closed, possibly enjoying the rest of the song.

Dean shook his head and stared at his new friend for a minute. Justin’s eyes were watery and bloodshot, but he guessed the irises were maybe sky blue when he wasn’t baked.

When the song ended, or whenever Justin’s train of thought left the station again, he opened his eyes, looked square at Dean, and said, “Hey, I know this is not any of my business, but is it just you and your little brother over there?”

A smart remark bubbled up out of habit. People were always trying to nose around in their business. But he bit it back. Justin wasn’t the sort who would drop a dime to child services. He stifled the next thought, too, the thought that stalked him constantly, ever since the shtriga had tried to take Sammy. What if Justin were--- but he stopped, took another long drink of the peculiar red beer.

“Nah,” Dean sighed finally, “we’re with our dad. He’s just... out. On a job.”

“Been a couple days, hasn’t it?”

“Probably going to be a couple more,” Dean remarked, feeling easy and relaxed now. “But speaking of my brother, I should go. I promised I’d bring him some food for his bottomless pit.” He stood up and awkwardly gave the empty bottle to Justin.

“If I see that Corolla should I kick its ass?” Justin said with a crooked smile.

“Nah. It won’t be back.”

 

“You seen an old black Impala come around here today?” Sam asked Justin the next morning, as all three stood out on the motel sidewalk. Dean and Sam were about to take in their scavenged cans to Bleuward’s and Justin was evidently leaving for work.

Justin cocked his head. “What’s with you two and cars?” he asked.

“That’s our Dad’s car,” Dean answered, then telling Sam, “and he hasn’t called yet.”

Sam hissed, “Yesss!”

Justin just grunted. He looked up at the soffits and soaked his eyes with Visine. He stared a long time at a dark grey mud dauber’s nest that seemed reassuringly vacant.

“Rough night?” asked Sam.

“Yeah, my sister’s sick,” he answered tersely.

Dean realized then that Justin and his friend-- his sister-- were maybe not having a weekend binge in a skeezy motel at the edge of town, like he’d thought. If Justin had been ‘it’s a wonderful world’ high last night, maybe he wasn’t just a stoner. At least, maybe he was a stoner with a cause. “Sorry, man,” he said.

“Thanks,” said Justin, stuffing the eyedrops in his pocket and walked down the sidewalk in the direction of Bleuward’s.

“Weirdo,” muttered Sam, and Dean immediately felt bad about having branded the pair with that tag when they showed up.

“Hey, man, his sister’s probably detoxing. We can’t really hear it over their tv and the damn bugs but I bet it’s been hell in there.”

“Then why’d he leave her here alone?” Sam asked.

“A man’s gotta work. Speaking of which,” he said, hefting the bag of beer cans, “let’s finish this and get breakfast.”

They trailed Justin by half a block to take their bags over to Bleuward’s, glass bottles clinking as they walked. By now, they just went right around to the back dock to hand the stuff over to Mel.

“Alright! Somebody had a good night!” Mel said boisterously. “You take care of all these yourself?” he said, winking at Sam.

Sam just smiled tightly.

Mel weighed the glass and the aluminum and payed out to Dean. “You know we don’t pay anything for plastic,” he said to Sam, holding out the bag of soda bottles.

“I know. But you do recycle it,” he answered with a shrug.

Dean smiled at Mel, slightly uncomfortable. “We’re gonna save the planet.”

Mel squinted at Sam. “Good luck with that.”

Dean saw Justin come out and grab a handtruck loaded with crates of oranges, and he had a crazy urge to call his name; he didn’t, though, and Justin wheeled the truck inside without looking up.

They had breakfast after that at the Affle House, Dean getting his hashbrowns plain so that Sam could have his all the way. He wasn’t sure what they’d do about tomorrow, and it was only the second week of summer break.

Sam turned over the remote to Dean when they got back to their room, but all he could find to watch besides Springer was yesterday’s Talk Soup. He found himself paying more attention to John Henson’s patch of white hair than the jokes. He realized after a few minutes that he could hear sobbing coming from next door and turned the volume up. The cicadas were almost silent in the mornings.

He changed the channel to Headline News, and had nearly dozed off when his phone rang.

 _"Dean,"_ his father said. " _Job’s done. I’ll be leaving in the morning, should be there by tomorrow afternoon. I’ll fill you in when I get there-- you’re gonna want to know why that talisman didn’t work like I thought it would. How’s Sammy?"_

“Oh, Sammy’s great. Wanna talk to him?” He leaned back to look at Sam, who was frantically shaking his head.

_"No, no, that’s fine. You boys just sit tight."_

“Yes, sir. Where’re we going next? Got anything yet?”

_"Nah, nothing yet. We might have a long summer ahead of us. I’ll see you tomorrow, though, okay?"_

“Okay. Hey, Dad, uh...”

 _"What, Dean?"_ He sounded irritated.

Dean tried to steel himself to ask for a wire, but chickened out. “Nothing, sorry.”

_"Fine. Talk to you soon."_

“Yes, sir.”

He hung up and threw the phone onto a pillow. Fifteen hours. Give or take.

“Is Dad on his way?”

“He said he’s leaving in the morning.”

Sam nodded, subdued, and turned back into his book.

“Hey, little brother, I’m going to Bleuward’s, wanna come along?”

“No. Can I go to the pool?”

“When I get back we’ll both go, okay?’

“Fine,” Sam said in a tone that made it clear that it was not fine at all.

 

The cicadas never stopped for long, but their song was muted and intermittent early in the day. Their bursts of susurration were followed by long interludes of soul-quenching silence, sometimes broken up by a solitary singer who would launch into a hopeful but short-lived squall.

The sunlight burned his shoulders as he walked to the grocery store to spend the last of their recycling money. Just dropping it all back into the stream. Dean hated to ask for money from his father and had decided long ago that he’d do anything to avoid doing it. Absolutely anything. Get in cars with strange men kind of anything. His dad always asked for him to account for the cash they spent if they ran short, and always, without fail, tore Dean’s carefully thought-out choices to pieces. There was, according to John Winchester, always something Dean had paid too much for, or some small thing he’d chosen to buy but shouldn’t have.

Cool, dry air dropped onto Dean like a blanket when he walked into the store. It smelled like orange skins and old lettuce inside, slightly bitter but comforting as well. He made his way around to the discount table, and found a slightly squelched bag of yesterday’s fresh rolls and several cans of kiddie pasta. He picked up enough for lunch and dinner, grabbed some speckled yellow bananas, and a bottle of strawberry soda. They could get breakfast from the lobby at the motel in the morning, and Dean planned to grab some extra cereal boxes this time; he hoped that their father would be in town before he had to worry about tomorrow’s supper.

Only one lane was open that time of day, and a frumpy woman with frizzled auburn hair squinted sourly at his tinned spaghetti and old bananas with rheumy, mascara-ringed eyes. Dean didn’t care what she thought of his selection. From behind him somewhere, “Jason” showed up to bag his small purchase, and suddenly his hands felt strangely hollow. He counted out bills and lots and lots of change.

“Need help out?” asked Justin.

“Nah, man, I walked.”

“I know,” Justin replied with a grin.

“I’m good,” Dean said tightly, feeling a little edgy.

“Alright, see you later,” Justin said and went back to stocking a stand of bright red apples.

He felt like he was walking out onto an alien planet when he left the store. The sun beat down around him, cooking the sidewalk and making the drifts of broken glass blaze like shards of ice. He walked back quickly. As he passed Justin’s room, he slowed down just a little bit, but it now seemed absolutely quiet and still behind the door.

 

Sam jumped into the glassy water with a whoop, right in front of the ‘No jumping or diving’ sign. Dean shook his head. He knew that Sam could swim like an otter and was still small enough to be able to leap right into the shallow end of a pool, but he was in no mood to have to sweet-talk a stick-in-the-ass desk clerk out of banning them. Because that conversation might lead to nosy questions about their father’s whereabouts. He hopped down into the water from the edge and swam the length of the pool a couple of times.

“Hey, Dean!”

Dean looked up at Sam, who squirted water out of his cupped hands right into his eye.

“You little jerk--” Dean said, mostly playfully, and yanked his brother well under the water.

After about a quarter of an hour, some more kids with an arsenal of water-guns invaded the patio.

“Hey, no jumping!” a little girl squealed at two other kids, who had plunged in and soaked her. Dean hung out at the deep end, watching Sam join the new kids enthusiastically and saw him sweet-talk his way into proprietorship of one of the soakers.

He was surprised to hear his name called from behind him.

“Hey, Dean?”

It was Justin, tie undone around his shoulders, hands full of grocery bags; he was holding one up and out like an offering.

Dean swam along the cool blue bottom of the pool to the ladder, and grabbed a bright white towel to hang around his shoulders.

“For you and your brother,” said Justin, handing him one of the bags.

Dean looked inside. An orange, two bruised red apples, three bright pink pint cartons of milk, a pack of hot dogs that were only one day past their best-by date, and a crushed box of honey-nut granola bars. Stuff that was too perishable or not pretty enough for the discount table. He didn’t know what to say.

“Mel usually takes this stuff himself. Says he gives it to the mission over on Fourth Avenue, but, you know...” Justin shrugged. “You can’t eat that canned shit all the time, man.”

Dean managed to say, “Thanks.”

“Sure thing. Hey, so was it, you know, quiet today?”

“Oh, you mean your sister? Yeah, pretty quiet.” He felt strange telling Justin about the crying jag he’d heard earlier, so he didn’t.

Justin seemed relieved. “That’s good.” Then his eyes narrowed. “I mean, I hope it’s good.”

“So thanks for all this, man,” Dean said. “I don’t even...”

Justin looked him in the eye, then glanced at Sam, who was diligently blasting one of the other kids with their own water-gun. “It’s fine. I’m a big brother too.”

Dean sat down on a deck chair, watching the children in the pool. Eventually, the water gun fights turned into actual squabbling, and Sam got tired of the pool.

As they walked back to their room, they could hear a woman yelling.

“Oh my God,” said Sam, “What is that smell?”

It hit Dean next-- sulfur. His heart skipped. Their father had always told them that if they smelled rotten eggs, they needed to get to a safe place as soon as possible. Dean ran over the neighborhood in his mind, trying to remember where the nearest patch of sacred ground might be. There was a Pentecostal church in a strip mall a block away-- he imagined that even though it was zoned commercial it might still be holy enough for their purposes.

They stopped several doors away, and realized that the shouting was coming from Justin’s room. He could hear Justin’s sister crying and yelling for Justin to get out. Finally, she shoved him out onto the sidewalk and slammed the door.

Dean and Sam stood perfectly still, staring.

“What happened?” Sam asked.

Dean’s hands felt sweaty and hollow again.

Justin looked at Dean a little helplessly and shrugged.

Dean put a hand on Sam, pushing him back a bit. “That smell--”

“That?” said Justin. “Yeah, sorry about that. It’s a rotten egg. We have a hot plate in there. I told her not to break the cracked one.” Justin stared at the number plate, bewildered. He pounded on the door. “June, open the damn door. I’m not mad.”

Dean sagged against the wall. Sam gaped at him, whispering, “Dude, it’s not that bad.”

“No, Sam, it’s not that, it’s just-- I thought, you know--”

“Demons???” Sam blurted out.

Justin turned and looked at Sam with a narrow-eyed glare, and the bottom fell out of Dean’s stomach. He tried to remember that they’d been neighbors for four days and these two had never done anything menacing-- hell, he’d even shared a beer with this guy just the night before. But in that moment of panic, he stepped in front of his brother and made his peace with death.

Justin reached into his collar, and pulled out a medal on a thin gold chain. It was a sacred heart medal, the kind he’d seen kids at school get for their first communion. “My sister isn’t possessed,” Justin said patiently to Sam. “She’s sick.” He looked at Dean. “I’m sorry.” He leaned his forearm against the door, and pressed his forehead to it.

Dean shepherded Sam around him to their room. “Hey, you want to come in for a while? At least until she decides to let you back in?” he asked Justin.

Justin looked at him, defeated, and held up his door key. “Thanks. I’m good.” He knocked on the door. “June? Come on, honey.”

Suddenly the door opened and Justin swayed forwards.

The drowned cat looked out at them. “Are you still mad?” she said challengingly to her brother.

The smell of sulfur was overpowering.

Justin shook his head. “No, Junebug. I’m not mad. But leave the door open,” Justin said as he went inside.

“I feel bad about calling them weirdos,” said Sam once they were inside. Their room smelled like bad egg, too, so Dean left the door swinging wide.

He saw Justin take a knotted bag out to the trash bins. As he walked back, he paused nearby. “Sorry,” he said again.

Dean got up off the bed, dragged a chair outside and sat down. The cicadas were starting their afternoon chorus. After a moment, Justin joined him, two beers in hand.

“I didn’t want to do this at a motel, you know?” Justin said, very quietly, glancing over his shoulder into the gloom of his motel room. “Hell, she could score twice before crossing the street. But we don’t want our parents to know, ‘cause I’m the state college fuckup pothead lost sheep, you know? And my roommate...” Justin looked towards his sister again. “He... I don’t know. This was too real, you know? I guess it would’ve upset his worldview or something.”

Dean nodded. He knew exactly what Justin was saying. They’d come as close as they ever had to upsetting Justin’s own worldview. Dean realized he wanted to tell Justin why they’d immediately jumped to the conclusion that something unholy had been happening in his room, and if anyone would understand it was the young man with the medal around his neck, who had explained the reality of the situation simply and with somber composure. But he sipped his beer in silence.

“I think we’ll be out of here in a couple of days.” Justin added. “Maybe even tomorrow.”

“Well, we will, for sure. Dad’s heading back. So, good luck, I guess.”

“Cheers,” answered Justin, holding out his bottle.

They clinked them together and finished in silence.

 

“Dean,” Sam began seriously when Dean came back inside, “I know you’re selling drugs. Again.” Sam was eating ravioli from the can, scooping spoonfuls of sauce and pasta and downing it ravenously and glancing at Dean suspiciously between bites.

Dean tried not to laugh. “How long have you known that?” he asked. Because he had, in the past-- the not-so-distant past-- sold some pot here and there; but he hadn’t been able to get hold of any in the last couple of weeks, much less move it. Although from the smells of weed and sandalwood and patchouli oil coming from every other room in the place, he could have maybe made a some money around here.

“Since a couple of days ago. You’re always running outside and now you’re friends with that guy next door.”

“Well, if I am it’s none of your business, twerp. ‘The less you know,’ you know?” It was hard to build up trust with anyone in the short amount of time they spent in any one place. It was easier when school was in, and that was when he’d sold the last of what small stash he’d been able to build up. Lots of things were easier when school was in, not least because of the two free meals a day. For the first time since turning in his withdrawal form, he thought he just might miss it.

“I know” said Sam, “feasible deniability. But Dean, what if you get caught?” Sam asked, an edge of fear in his voice, “You know that time you got lost, when Dad and I were on the way back from Bobby’s, it was just him and me for a while? It was miserable-- I couldn’t watch tv, I couldn’t go out by myself. If you go to jail it will be like that all the time!”

Dean leaned and got in Sam’s face. “First of all, what is so awful about Dad that you can’t spend more than an hour alone with him? And second of all, I won’t get caught. Even if I do, I’m still a juvie so Dad would be the one in trouble. Just drop it, don’t worry about it. And if you want to eat, you’ll stay out of my damn business.”

This was easier, to let Sam think he was selling weed instead of selling himself. He had an unlimited supply of Dean, though. And the penalties, according to Tawnya from Kentucky, were almost nonexistent for him. _‘They’ll threaten your dad with a case worker, they’ll maybe put you in a group home for a couple nights, try to scare you straight, but unless you end up moving from a folding file into a three-ring binder, they’ll always let you go. They don’t want to pay to feed your ass any more than your dad does.’_

He’d sold weed because he liked the attention as much as he liked having cash. He enjoyed having something people wanted. But hustling still wasn’t sitting quite right with him. It was all just one transaction after another, and it all made him feel desperate. Like the feeling from a bad dream right before it tipped into a nightmare, when he’d just realized he’d lost someone or something.

Sam finally turned out his light. Dean stayed up, watching another Talk Soup.

He heard Justin’s door open, and saw his shadow cross the window quickly. In an instant, Dean made up his mind to follow him. Sam was asleep, his book laying pages-down next to him. Dean turned up the volume on the television just a little more. He knew that when he opened the door, the sound of the cicadas would fill the room like a tsunami. But Sam thought he was dealing pot, and would probably only be annoyed with him, because after all, a sale would mean food later on.

He opened the door as little as possible, glancing around at Sam, who didn’t seem to wake up at all. He could feel the shush of the cicadas swirl past his shoulders and spread into the room behind him.

He hurried down the row until he got to the cut-through that led to the vending machines; hearing Justin shoveling ice from the ice maker, he slowed down and walked coolly on through.

Dean wasn’t sure why he’d followed at first, but then seeing Justin reading over the soda machine-- distracted and seeming to want something he didn’t see on the panel-- he understood what he’d been after. He’d never see this guy after tomorrow. He just wanted to know.

“Justin, hey,” he said, trying to sound like he was surprised to see him.

“Hey,” Justin said, nodding at him with a small smile.

“Can’t sleep?”

Justin smiled wider, shook his head, and jangled his change in the palm of his hand. “It’s the damn bugs.”

“Don’t I know it,” Dean answered, smiling too. He leaned against the wall, hands in his pockets. “Of course, my brother is dead to the world.”

“I miss sleeping like that,” said Justin a little sadly.

Dean hated to see that somberness descend on Justin again, but didn’t know how to lift it. This was not the direction he wanted this conversation to take. He settled against the wall a little more.

“Dean, are you really eighteen?” Justin said, squinting at him crookedly.

“Damn straight I am.”

Justin chuckled at that and turned back to the vending machine.

“Why would I lie?” Dean said, thinking that maybe he’d accidentally walked into a joke.

“So many reasons,” Justin said, as though he’d already enumerated them silently to himself. “You’re dangerous, did you know that?” He shifted the ice bucket to his other elbow.

Dean cocked his chin. “You think I’m dangerous. Really?”

Justin turned towards him, and looked him up and down. “Damn straight,” he replied.

Dean took a step towards him, then another, and soon he was leaning against the ice machine, his hip out a little, his head back. He smiled slowly.

Justin closed the gap between them, canting his head a little. He was looking at Dean's mouth. Dean licked his lips. Justin's eyes blew wide.

He was so close to him he could feel Justin's breath next to his own lips.

Dean jumped at footsteps behind him. Justin suddenly turned back to the soda machine. Dean looked over his shoulder.

John Winchester had rounded the corner and froze in his tracks.

“Dean,” he said simply, breathlessly, defeatedly. “I came early,” he said, a warning note entering his voice.

“This your dad?” Justin said, eyeing John dubiously.

Dean just nodded, looking back and forth between them, uncertain why he suddenly felt like he could throw up.

Justin slid coins into the slot and made a quick selection. He caught Dean’s eye as he passed him, and muttered, “Later.”

Dean turned to face his dad, unsure what to do next. “You want anything?” he said, cocking his chin at the vending machine.

“I can’t let you out of my sight for a second, can I?” said John quietly, menacingly, spinning Dean around violently. “First that club, and now _this_? Do you have any idea what you’re doing? Did you see how that-- that _sicko_ was looking at you?”

Dean stood up. “He wasn’t--”

He felt a pop against his cheek-- his face went numb and he was looking up at the ceiling, and he knew he’d been punched into the wall. He looked at his father, or tried to, slurring, “He wasn’t--”

A fist to his stomach knocked the wind out of him.

“You mouthy little sonofabitch” John shouted, grabbing him by his shoulders and lifting him up. “Are you that stupid, or are you actually defending him?”

Dean didn’t know what to say. Either answer was a trap, so he fell back on, “No sir!”

“No sir what?”

He made a choice. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Dad, I’m sorry--”

And another punch to the face. This time, he felt an electric twinge in his nose that quickly spread as red-hot pain all over his cheekbones and into the roof of his mouth. Blood poured down the back of his throat-- he coughed and spat it out.

John glanced around quickly. “You get back to the room and go to bed. I’m not done with you, though.”

 

When Dean got back, the lights were blazing. He keyed in, popping the deadlock open so the door wouldn’t close and his dad could get back in.

Sam, wide awake now, stared at him, open mouthed. “What happened to you?”

John came in, shut the door firmly, and snapped the chain into place. “Your brother walked into a drug deal and they turned on him. Good thing I came along.”

Dean washed his face in the sink. Leaning over hurt, made his eyes feel like they were going to plop out of their sockets, but he knew the drill. Nut up and wash it off. He spat out clots of black blood that slipped down the white porcelain and slithered away down the drain. He rifled through his shaving kit until he found a little bottle of ibuprofen and downed two of them, scooping clear, cold water from the tap with his hand. He dried his face on a towel, leaving a garish streak of red on the white terrycloth.

John switched all the lights off, pulled off his shirt, and stood over the beds, as Dean kicked off his boots and lay down, still fully clothed, next to Sam.

Without the television to break it up, the sound of the cicadas outside crept through the windows and around the door and started to fill the empty spaces in the room.

Once John was snoring, Sam turned over and the janky mattress swayed like a hammock in a ship at sea.

“For God’s sake Sam, lie still!” Dean groaned.

Sam looked over his shoulder, but their father didn’t stir. They were still drowning in cicada song.

“Dean, stop selling, okay? Those guys could have killed you,” Sam murmured, trying to speak quietly but at the same time loudly enough to be heard over the sibilant insects.

Dean said nothing. Sam thought he was reckless, or an idiot. Dean hated it when his dad dressed him down in front of Sam, or worse knocked him around, but when he turned Dean into a walking, talking cautionary tale he felt like he wanted to slink away and hide somewhere. But instead he had to play into it, parroting his dad’s story and reinforcing the lesson given any chance. Sam was going to grow up good.

“Dean!” Sam whined.

“They weren’t going to kill me. They just roughed me up a little, taught me a lesson, that’s all. Go to sleep. And be still!”

Dean closed his eyes, but could tell that Sam was still awake. He peeked at his brother.

“Please be more careful.”

He just closed his eyes again, hoping to get some sleep before the ibuprofen wore off.

 

In the morning he had a purple bruise on one cheek, and two starling-black streaks under his eyes. He’d had a hard time breathing during the night, and his nose started bleeding again in the shower. He swallowed three ibuprofen this time. He scarfed down a soft banana and soaked a box of cereal in the last pint of milk and waited for it to get soggy. He wasn’t up for eating yet, but the pills had made his stomach hurt and their dad was ready to get underway. He’d packed up the rest of the food into two grocery bags.

“I’m gonna go check us out. Dean, clear out and meet me at the car,” John said, leaving without a backwards glance.

Sam was still in bed, eating the other box of cereal dry, watching X-Men with a wolfish scowl on his face. Dean stood rooted to the middle of the room for a moment.

“Pack your bags, Sammy,” he said, “I’ll be right back.”

He flipped the deadbolt so that the door wouldn’t close all the way, and knocked at the next room. He hadn’t heard Justin leave for Bleuward’s yet.

As soon as Justin opened the door, Dean slipped inside.

“What the--”

“It’s okay, it’s fine,” Dean said softly, holding up his hands placatingly.

“It’s so not. If I’d have known--”

“You think this is the first time my old man has taken a swipe at me? I said, it’s fine.”

Justin peered at Dean. “Did he break your nose?”

Dean laughed. “No, but what if he had anyway? Better by somebody I know, right?”

Dean glanced at June, who was swaddled in the bedcovers with just a fringe of white hair sprayed across the mattress to let anyone know there was a person there.

Justin grabbed a washcloth off of the rack by the sink, dunked it into the motel ice bucket, wrung it out, and handed it to Dean.

“Thanks.” He pressed the cold cloth to the side of his nose and over his bruised cheek. “But listen, we’re just about out of here. Dad’s got another job--”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Oklahoma, I think--”

“Give me your email address--”

Dean laughed. “What? Please, college boy, where am I going to check email messages even if I had one?”

“You could--”

“Look,” Dean cut him off tightly, “I just wanted to say goodbye. And thanks for the beers.”

Justin nodded. “Bye, then.”

Dean ran his thumb down the tie hanging around Justin’s neck. Then he leaned in and kissed him-- softly because his face hurt so much.

Justin kissed him back, and Dean ignored the pulpy ache in his cheek when Justin began to lean in harder. He felt the stud in Justin’s lip click against his teeth, and pulled away.

He was in so much trouble.

He slipped out the door without another word, into the suffocating heat of the sidewalk, and snuck back into his room.

“Dean, everything smells like pot! You smell like pot! Dad’s going to kill us!” Sam said as soon as he returned.

Dean rolled his eyes. “Just pack your bag.”

“Where’d you get that?” Sam asked, looking at the rolled-up washcloth.

“This? I’ve had it all morning. Just pack, Sam, and we’ll wash our clothes somewhere tonight, okay?”

“But Dad--”

“Dad knows the smell isn’t from us. Calm the hell down.”

Sam started stuffing his dirty pajamas into his duffel.

While Sam crammed clothes and anger into his bag, Dean went over the room again. He’d already inventoried his clothes and their weapons, he’d swept the salt off of the windowsills, and he’d made sure he tossed away the papers with the pentacles and spells on them. When Sam zipped his duffel, Dean picked up all the bags and ushered his brother out into the parking lot.

John was coming around the corner from the office, and simply opened the trunk for them and then slipped into the driver’s seat.

Dean stowed their bags and started to get into the back seat with Sam.

“Hold up, Dean. How about you ride shotgun for a while?”

He handed the bag with the rest of the food in it to Sam and sat up front with his father, his stomach still aching.

He glanced backwards as they pulled away.

He saw Justin’s lean face peering from the window, watching them wide-eyed, wild hair like a crown of sparks over his head.

 

Dean leaned over just a little, trying to see his reflection in the side-view mirror.

“Stop looking at yourself, goddammit,” John snapped. “You’re nose is fine. You’re too pretty for your own damn good, anyway,” he added irritably.

Dean sat up straight, looking stonily at the road.

John glanced at the backseat at Sam, who had his headphones on and was reading a book.

“But listen, Dean,” he said softly, “I ever catch you talking to another man that way again, I’ll do more than break your nose. You understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” Dean said meekly.

“No son of mine is going to turn queer, do you hear me?”

“Yes, sir,” Dean replied.

John gripped the steering wheel restlessly.

“I’m sorry,” Dean added contritely.

After a long while, John nodded his head and turned on the radio.

 _'Open up, everything’s waiting for you... You could go your own way,'_ wailed Lindsey Buckingham. _'Go your own wa-a-ay.'_

Dean turned to look out the window, ignoring his reflection next to him, intent on watching the painted stripe on the berm flow like a wide, white river through a stark, gray plain-- darker on one side than the other-- alongside him.

**Author's Note:**

> The club is a reference to an incident in CBGB referenced in 10x9 The Things They Left Behind.  
> In 1996, there was a massive nationwide eruption of cicadas. Dean would be seventeen, which might be a year too early for him to have already dropped out, but I’m leaving the date because, dude, cicadas. The sound they made was deafening and made sleep difficult; we sometimes had to shout to make ourselves heard from twenty feet away. Their noise would probably do a decent job of masking all kinds of sounds in an older motel. Also, I graduated from a state college, but that’s one particular character’s opinion of himself. The Smashing Pumpkins song on the Corolla guy’s radio is "1979" and the song that Dean hears in the Impala is “Go Your Own Way” by Fleetwood Mac.  
> Sorry if you've seen this before, I just updated the title because I actually have had the worst time deciding what to call this fic...  
> So I had a whole playlist for this story that I listened to while planning and writing this. I'd share it on spotify but I recently deleted my account. All are Billboard top 100 songs that Dean would have to be familiar with even if he personally wouldn't necessarily like them. But they each mean something to the narrative, chronologically. I'm not even sorry that Sting made it on here two times. So here's the list for now...  
> 1996-- Smashing Pumpkins “1979”  
> 1995-- Dishwalla “Counting Blue Cars”  
> 1994-- Stone Temple Pilots “Big Empty”  
> 1993-- Duran Duran “Ordinary World”  
> 1992-- Sting “It’s Probably Me”  
> 1991-- Extreme “Hole Hearted”  
> 1990-- Prince “Thieves in the Temple”  
> 1989--Breathe “How Can I Fall?”  
> 1988--INXS “Devil Inside”  
> 1987--U2 “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”  
> 1986--Peter Gabriel “Sledgehammer”  
> 1985-- ‘Til Tuesday “Voices Carry”  
> 1984-- Night Ranger “Sister Christian”  
> 1983-- The Police “Every Breath You Take”  
> 1982--Soft Cell “Tainted Love”  
> 1981--REO Speedwagon “Take It On The Run”  
> 1980-- Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers “Refugee”  
> 1979-- Fleetwood Mac “Go Your Own Way”


End file.
